


Rabbit Hole

by JesstheEnthusiast



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angsty James, Bad Boy James, F/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 13:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JesstheEnthusiast/pseuds/JesstheEnthusiast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But breathe. Always breathe. Don't forget to breathe.</p>
<p>James!Centric with a hint of James/Lily</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rabbit Hole

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. That belongs to the wonderful J.K. Rowling.
> 
> This story was also inspired by the song "C'mon" by Panic!At the Disco.

He breathes it out of his lungs and smoke is everywhere. Swirling, spiraling, seducing, and breathe it back in, back in – always in, out, in, out, out, in, in, and he doesn’t remember anymore. Only smoke and hazy glasses lenses and a castle in the distance, so tense these days that it may as well be made of glass, and smoke again. But breathe. Always breathe. Don’t forget to breathe.

 

The badge is heavy on his chest, but his head feels light, and that weight he carries on his too young shoulders is finally giving him a night off, and time is of the essence.

 

Head Boy, those motherfuckers made him Head Boy, but he decides to breathe instead and save the good-boy-suck-up-leader-prat image that he’s pretending to live up to in the stone walls of the glass castle where he’s supposed to be asleep. Because he didn’t expect so much to change because of a stupid badge and a stupid girl and a stupid war led by stupid people who have stupid beliefs against people like that stupid girl who he can’t help but think is anything but stupid. But he wants her to be – he wants all of them to be. Because if they were all stupid, he wouldn’t feel so shitty about failing them all the time.

 

But it’s their own fucking fault because they shouldn’t have made him Head Boy and left him to drown in responsibility without his consent and fuck, why didn’t they just pick Remus? Remus is a werewolf, but, fuck, he has a good head on his shoulders and doesn’t have the nerve to crack under pressure like he has. Because Remus is a decent bloke. All James can do is remember to breathe.

 

He’s running low on Gillyweed. He doesn’t remember ever smoking this much before – certainly not alone. He hasn’t got a partner-in-crime – his dog has gone missing in a fit of rage over a sick and dying father and a shrew mother always too drunk and too bitchy to ever say I love you.

 

Why the fuck do you care? James had demanded in their last conversation over three weeks ago. You hate them. They can go fuck themselves because they treated you like shit.

 

That earned him a broken nose and a broken friendship and a bit of broken pride.

 

But he’ll be back – he always comes back. And he’ll be back with his tail between his legs and a shy, doggish grin.

 

But for now James just breathes. And imagines her silky lips and hypnotizing hips and the color scheme of her that reminds him of Christmas. She’s worried about him and he knows it because she’s the only person out there that realizes that he can’t handle it. Everyone has their fucking blind faith and their fucking God and he’s got her concerned glances and Are You Okays and her company but not in the way that he wants it. She’s in his grasp but he’s not allowed to hold her and he can’t help but feel as if she is sand that is quickly slipping through his fingers and he knows that the smoking doesn’t help his case but it’s not his fault because he has to fucking breathe.

 

So he does. In. Out. In. Out. The smoke is better, so much better than her absent touch and the relationship that they’re not in and the sex that they’re not having.

 

He doesn’t know what’ll happen when the smoke burns out and he runs out of Gillyweed but for now he just breathes.

 

And he spirals down the rabbit hole that will hopefully spit him back out.

 

But he secretly hopes it doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So I don’t know what this is but I think I like it? Not the James I usually read or write but I wanted to explore this one and this is what I came up with. Please let me know what you thought in a review; I’d love the feedback!
> 
> ~Jess :)


End file.
